


Hannibal: Becoming

by ChangeTheCircumstances



Series: Hannibal: The Continuation [2]
Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter (Hopkins Movies), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types, Hannibal Lecter Tetralogy - Thomas Harris
Genre: Clarice centric, Gen, Post Silence of the Lambs, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Team Sassy Science + Clarice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-02-23
Packaged: 2018-09-26 02:36:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9858191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChangeTheCircumstances/pseuds/ChangeTheCircumstances
Summary: After Clarice's success with the case of Buffalo Bill, she struggles to find her footing within the FBI and her relationship with Will Graham.





	1. After Graduation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has come over from my last fic! If you're new, I highly recommend reading Hannibal: Silence first because this references a lot of events that happened in it.
> 
> Otherwise, thank you to everyone who decides to read this and I hope you enjoy! It will be a two-parter and the next story will be a short two-parter focused on Abigail.

Besides the act of graduating and having her permanent badge, Clarice was also fairly happy to get out of the dorms and into her own apartment. She had been lucky, Ardelia could have been a complete ass rather than becoming a true friend, but Clarice enjoyed her privacy like any person and it was fun picking out a place in the Quantico area seeing as she would be working under Crawford.

Ardelia found a place as well. It was a great deal smaller and simpler seeing as she would likely have to travel a lot more for the division she had chosen. However, that also meant she had the place under control pretty quickly. Clarice ended up going over several times simply to hang out, have drinks, and/or dinner before she even had her place ready.

The first time Ardelia came over, Clarice showed her around, pointing out where everything was.

“And this?” Ardelia had asked, going to one door.

“Just a storage closet.”

Ardelia had nodded and thankfully had walked away. However, Clarice should have known that if anyone figured it out, it would be her.

It was on Ardelia’s third visit that she came, giving absolutely not pleasantries as she said, “Alright, I double checked the room plans just to make sure and you are definitely lying.”

“Ardelia please—”

“Don't even try it Starling. I knew something was off when this didn't match the type of apartment you had told me you got. That isn’t a storage closet. It’s another room and I want to know what you have hidden behind it.”

Clarice didn’t stop her, not because she didn’t want Ardelia to see what was behind there, but she knew that trying to physically keep her back would only raise her suspicions more. Now that Ardelia realized it didn’t make since to have a closet there, she wouldn’t let up until she figured out what was behind it. Because of that, Clarice didn’t try to stop her as she opened the door.

“See. It is…a storage space. Technically.”

In the room were some boxes that Clarice just wasn’t sure what to do with along with a few stacks of books that didn’t fit on her shelves. There was a table and chair, pretty plain and simple, a printer, and a board on one wall where a number of pictures, newspaper and online articles were pinned up.

For a moment, silence filled the area and Clarice tried to think of something else to say. However, there really wasn’t any way to make the situation look better than it was.

“You’re obsessed Clarice,” muttered Ardelia. Her voice was breathless, almost like she had just run a marathon. She moved forward and looked at one grainy photo that had come from a security camera in the UK. “You’re using FBI resources for this?”

“They need to be caught,” murmured Clarice. “And everything I’ve gotten went through the proper channels and I have the proper clearance to request copies of any of those old files.”

Ardelia shook her head though, eyes roaming over the rest of the photos and articles before turning around. “Tell me your head is screwed on straight.”

“So tight I have a headache,” Clarice sighed.

“They have an actual taskforce for this you know,” said Ardelia. “I mean, assuming that it was Graham who took Abigail Hobbs, that’s got to be a pretty obvious duo, right? She’s missing an ear and has got that neck scar, Graham has two scars on his face as well, and then there’s of course Hannibal the Cannibal.”

Clarice almost told Ardelia off for using the horrid nickname. The title was to restricting. Clarice knew that Will wouldn't have gone over the deep end with just anyone and calling Dr. Lecter Hannibal the Cannibal seemed to diminish that. However, she didn't say so, knowing that it would only worsen the situation. Instead she said, “There hasn’t been any confirmed sightings of him since the fall.”

“So you think he’s dead?”

“I didn’t say that,” murmured Clarice. Her mind went back to the call, to Lecter’s voice and Will’s. She hadn’t told anyone of that despite the fact that it was breaking the law. However, even if she had told the FBI, it wouldn't have made a difference. They were gone and out of reach of the FBI for now.

“Just tell me you’re keeping yourself grounded, alright? I’m going to start getting sent all over the states but I can’t leave knowing my best friend might be losing it.”

“I’m not in here all hours of the day Ardelia. I do have fun with you and Jimmy and Brian.” Her eyes moved back to the wall. “But I can’t just let it rest.”

Ardelia let out a small sigh. If anyone knew how stubborn she could be, it was her. “Well then make sure you continue to hang out with them when I’m not here. I don’t want to see you losing yourself to this.”

“Don’t worry. I know there are other cases that require my attention a great deal more,” murmured Clarice. “I just can’t ignore this one either.”

“As long as we’re on the same page.”

Clarice nodded.

“Ok, good. Then where is that wonderful microwave dinner you promised me?”

Clarice chuckled and they walked out of the room, the door firmly closing behind Ardelia. The subject never came up again.

But Clarice didn’t stop going to the room, staring at the same pictures for hours at a time, rereading articles again and again. She had even gone to Freddie Lounds, off the books of course, and had asked if she knew anything. She either didn’t or was simply unwilling to give it to her though and the conversation had really just been Lounds trying to get a statement from her in regards to Jame Gumb's death or Will's escape.

The lack of information didn’t deter Clarice though as she continued the search.

There were many supposed sightings of the three, sometimes together, sometimes separately, but not once did it ever pan out.

And again, a small part of Clarice didn’t want Will to ever be caught. She had only seen him in a cage but somewhere deep inside her she knew that the image was wrong. Those bars had never belonged around him.

Sometimes when she occasionally dreamed, it was of their conversations though they were always different from her memories. The words were usually the same but the scenery was always different. Sometimes it occurred in a forest, other times in Clarice’s own room. Once they stood in Hannibal Lecter’s office. Clarice had only seen pictures of the place so it was probably very off but Will seemed right in the setting. He even ended up showing her around.

It wasn’t that she thought of Will every second of the day. There were times where she could relax and watch TV, read a book, talk to a friend or colleague. But there was always that second, that split moment when he came to mind. During her waking hours she fought him off harshly, the act draining her far more than she would have liked.

Sleep was the true enemy in that case. It constantly brought him back, their conversations, real and made up.

One sleep deprived day she even hallucinated him standing there as she poured herself a glass of wine.

“Hannibal would have criticized you. He hates cheap wine,” Will said, swirling his own glass of whiskey. Clarice knew the brand, could conjure up the smells because she had seen it in the list of evidence taken from Will's home when he was accused of being the Chesapeake Ripper.

Clarice wondered if he still drank that brand or if it was to lowly for Dr. Lecter.

Still, the hallucination only happened once and when she hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours. Other than that slip up, she thought she had a handle on it. She thought that she was controlling it.

But then Jimmy and Brian seemed to notice something was weighing her down, something that had them throwing worried glances her way constantly. When even Crawford felt the need to double check if she was well, Clarice knew that something had to change. She wouldn’t dare let her work drop. Not to the point where it risked lives. She couldn’t let Catherine Martin be her only success. However, she couldn't stop looking for Will and neither could she fight off his those intrusive thoughts.

Because of that, Clarice stopped fighting Will’s presence altogether. She let the thoughts linger for as long as they wanted before they fell to the back of her mind and she was able to turn to whatever conversation or work she was doing.

Sometimes the thoughts were her theorizing over Will’s psychology, how he would deal with a certain situation, and other times simpler thoughts plagued her. Once she was simply listening to Crawford give a briefing on a new case and as she listened intently, Will’s voice whispered to her.

“I used to hate these. All eyes on me because I wasn’t real FBI. But you are. Even with the success of Buffalo Bill, you fit in.”

Clarice imagined the old Will would have been secretly jealous of such a feeling. The new Will though, the one she had met, he likely would have been pleased for her. He had found his place of belonging and she had found hers.

Accepting the thoughts rather than forcing them away turned out to be a great help as her mind didn’t seem to work against itself constantly. She began to enjoy herself more and only once she had accepted the intrusive voice did she realize how much it had taken to fight it off.

No one said anything to her but she suspected that they all saw the change, particularly Ardelia.

Clarice even found a use for her figment of Will whenever he came up during a case. She was better at seeing things from the victim’s side, of taking their pain and finding out what happened to them through that. Will connected with the perpetrators and through that guise, Clarice was able to see them too.

Sometimes she could see Crawford giving her an odd look in moments like those, likely being reminded of Will.

And through accepting him, she found the need to comb through new information as to his location grew less. When she found time and it was late at night with sleep evading her, she still looked over the pictures and articles again. However, she was not obsessed anymore (Ardelia had been right originally even if Clarice had denied it). She reached a balance within herself, allowing Will to take residence there as she used him to her benefit, to fulfill her nature.

Somewhere else in the world, far away from the FBI's reaches, Will was fulfilling his own nature as well and Clarice found she couldn't be angry with him for that. They simply were, and Clarice supposed that was all anyone could really be.


	2. 18 Months Later

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for those who've left kudos and are interested in this fic! The next one in this series will focus on the Murder Family, particularly Abigail, after Silence.

Clarice couldn’t believe she was stuck with Paul Krendler of all people. Even worse, Crawford had retired just a month ago and Clarice wasn’t exactly on great terms with the new head of the Behavioral Science Unit thanks to a stunt in Indiana. Because of that, there was no chance of getting rid of him.

Unlike most people, Krendler didn’t regard her as a hero for her solving of the Buffalo Bill case. That would have been just fine with Clarice as she honestly hated how some people only saw her as that (and Freddie Lounds certainly wasn’t any help either whenever Clarice ended up in her articles; practically christened ‘the Buffalo Bill Slayer’ now). Nevertheless, Krendler seemed to think she wasn’t even an average agent. For whatever reason, he thought she didn’t deserve her badge and that she had used the Buffalo Bill case to get her through graduation.

It was utterly ludicrous and his treatment of her and her ideas was completely disrespectful. However, she had already found out that writing official complaints was pointless due to Krendler’s standing. Clarice’s only solace was that she didn’t have to deal with his dicketry all alone.

In the lab, she stood with Jimmy and Brian in front of two slabs. A man’s body lay on each one, the heads missing and their fronts repeatedly stabbed.

“How the hell did you beat Krendler here? You two were coming together, right?” asked Brian.

“He took the elevator. I ran down the stairs,” said Clarice.

Jimmy chuckled at that. “I don’t blame you. Being in the same room with the arrogant prick is hard enough. I’d hate to add the risk of getting stuck in an elevator with him.”

That at least made Clarice smile as she asked, “So what have you got so far?”

“Well, remarkably all the stabbing came after they died,” Brian said.

“And the lack of heads?”

“Before,” Jimmy replied.

Clarice grimaced at the thought. “Toxicology?”

“Already sent it in. We’re guessing either bigfoot took them out or they were inebriated when it happened seeing as there’s no sign of a struggle, no bruises or scrapes or broken fingernails,” Brian said. “I don’t know about you but I would put up a bit of a struggle if someone was trying to take my head off.”

Jimmy smirked. “Which one?”

“Both obviously!” Brian made a show of waving across his body. “It’s all or nothing honey. This is all staying intact before I go.”

Clarice rolled her eyes. “Glad to know. Do you have anything else?”

“Well, at the very least their hands are intact so we were able to identify them. Meet Marcus Grane and Jackson Brunz,” Jimmy said, pointing to each body respectively.

Brian handed her the files. “And we’ve got something even better.”

Clarice looked over it, her eyes lighting up as she saw their places of work. She looked up to see Jimmy and Brian smiling at her smugly. “You’re welcome,” Brian said.

“What has you all so cheery?”

Brian’s smile noticeably dropped at the sight of Krendler. “You not being here.”

“Now, now Brian,” Jimmy said. He gave him a patronizing look and put a hand on Brian’s shoulder. “You can’t say something like that. He’s to daft to realize the implied words. You just have to be really blunt.” Jimmy turned back to Krendler. “Sir, you’re an asshole.”

Clarice purposefully turned away to hide the smile on her face.

“Your nonsense is interfering with this investigation like it does with everyone prior to it,” spit out Krendler. “I don’t understand why Crawford used you as often as he did.”

“Because we get results,” Brian shot back, “unlike some people who just rip off others.”

“How dare you! I’ve—”

“Turns out they found these two men worked at the same factory,” Clarice quickly cut in. As enjoyable as it was watching Brian and Jimmy tug at Krendler like a puppet, she didn’t want either of them to get punched. “We should hurry over there and start asking around before this happens again.”

“Where is it?” Krendler growled, giving Jimmy and Brian one more evil glare before he focused back on her. At the very least he didn’t ignore good information when she had it. He just seemed to think she had somehow cheated in getting it.

As Clarice handed over the file and started to follow Krendler out of there, Jimmy called out, “Don’t forget about drinks tonight!”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Clarice replied. Out of the corner of her eyes she caught Krendler’s upturned sneer at her words. However, she simply focused on the fact that she’d be able to complain all about it to Jimmy and Brian later that evening and forced her face to remain neutral.

* * *

 

“I’m still surprised it turned out to be a woman,” muttered Brian with a shake of his head. “They’re usually not so god damn gruesome.”

“Come on Brian. It’s 2020. A woman can chop off someone’s head just as effectively as a man,” Jimmy replied.

Clarice snorted which got everyone laughing. She raised her hand for another round and the bartender quickly nodded with a smile.

It was two o’clock in the morning in the tiny bar and besides another small group, they were the only ones there. They would have gone earlier except it seemed the murderer her and Krendler had been after hadn’t been too intelligent. After knowing where the two victims had worked, it had led from one thing to another. By ten they had her in handcuffs but it had taken quite some time before Clarice had finished the paperwork. Thankfully, Brian and Jimmy had been kind enough to wait and they had gone to the usual bar despite it being one in the morning.

Now an hour had passed but they weren’t planning on leaving any time soon. Besides, normal sleep schedules were a thing of the past when each had respectively joined the FBI.

“You know he slipped on some wet cement when we were in pursuit,” commented Clarice with a grin.

“Did you take a picture?”

“They were chasing a serial killer. I doubt they really had time Brian,” Jimmy said with a laugh. “Thanks,” he added as three more beers were placed on the table and the empty glasses were taken up. “So, Ardelia couldn’t make it?”

Clarice shook her head. Because Ardelia had finally ended up specializing in white collar crime their jobs didn’t usually intersect. “She’s in California at the moment. Something to do with some major tax evasion or something.”

“God I am so happy I work with the dead,” muttered Brian. “That sounds boring as hell.”

“Agreed,” Jimmy said, raising his glass.

The others copied him and everyone took a sip before Clarice asked, “So how has Crawford been? You had lunch with him this past week, right?” She had never gotten around to just calling him ‘Jack’ like Brian and Jimmy did. Even with him retired and Clarice an agent, he was still very much the Guru to her.

“Pretty good,” said Jimmy. “I think he’s more shocked that he doesn’t mind being retired more than anything else. I think he expected to go mad by the first week.”

“ _I_ expected him to go mad!” exclaimed Brian. “I thought he was going to come bursting into the lab in like three days demanding to see a body.”

Clarice chuckled at the image. “Well I’m glad he’s doing well.”

“Still, it would be nice to have him as a buffer to Krendler,” sighed Jimmy.

“You didn’t tell Jack, did you?”

“What? No, no. He would have gotten involved and as nice as it would have been for a bit, he can’t exactly stick around to _keep_ Krendler back forever. We’ll just have to figure out something else.”

Brian grabbed a handful of nuts, munching nosily as he said, “We could always kill him. I mean, who better than FBI agents right?”

“Well as FBI agents, we all know that it’ll just cause a bigger shit storm down the road,” Clarice said.

“Unless we make it look like a suicide,” Jimmy added. “Then we wouldn’t have to worry about questions.”

“But do you think Krendler would do that?” asked Brian. “Might be too suspicious.”

“True but everyone has their breaking point. The really hard part is the note,” Jimmy said. “I mean, anyone can just type a note up and print it out.”

“So we get Bowman to forge one. I think he could do it. And Krendler’s personality is basically all asshole so it can’t be that hard to replicate his style.”

“How about we stop discussing how we’re going to kill Krendler for now,” Clarice chuckled, scratching the back of her neck uneasily. She actually was really enjoying the theorizing but it was that fact that had Clarice pulling herself back just a bit. It was somewhat disturbing just how alright she was with all the talk.

Her mind drifted to Will in that instance. It was an automatic association that she had stopped fighting long ago as Will crept into her mind. Now it felt like they were doing the same thing, only Will sat at a kitchen table while she was in a bar and he had Lecter and Abigail Hobbs with him instead of Jimmy and Brian. She wondered what he would do now, how he might kill Krendler. Would he kill for her? If she asked him, she imagined he would.

That line of thought fell away as she turned back to the present. Brian and Jimmy had moved onto other topics so she quickly put herself back into the conversation and her mind fully slipped away from Will. She asked, “So what about your fish Jimmy?”

“I have taken the initiative in this matter,” Brian quickly cut in, “and have decided that for the betterment of all animals, I will be the one taking care of any pets from now on.”

“You overfed it didn’t you,” Clarice sighed.

“Maybe just a little,” Jimmy winced. “There’s probably a reason I wasn’t ever put in charge of the pets when I was a kid.”

“Speaking of family, when am I going to meet the infamous twin brother?”

“Urgh, hopefully never!”

“Yeah, you’re not going to meet him,” Brian replied. “I haven’t even met him yet! And I’ve introduced you to all my sisters!”

“Your sisters are lovely.”

“They are heathens and I still can’t believe you sided with them last Thanksgiving.”

“The turkey _was_ a bit underdone.”

“It was perfect!”

Jimmy made a face and shook his head. “Either way, you’re not in charge of it this year. And I sure as hell am not doing it because I can barely warm up a frozen dinner without somehow messing it up.”

Clarice laughed, knowing that it was completely true.

“I just don’t understand why we’re hosting again! It’s not like we have enough room for Sarah, Janet and her husband and two kids, Leah and her girlfriend, and my mom and dad,” Brian scowled. However, he didn’t ask about Jimmy’s family as all of them knew it wasn’t really an option. Jimmy’s dad was dead, his mother had Alzheimer’s that was increasing at an alarming rate, and there was the asshole twin that Jimmy refused to talk to so it wasn’t like holidays were really a possibility for his family. Nevertheless, Brian still seemed stuck on why they had to host again.

“First off,” Jimmy replied, “we’re not putting your parents through that kind of stress, Janet’s family will be in the middle of a move when it happens, and Leah is studying abroad.”

“Well what about Sarah?”

“Do you really want Sarah in charge of organizing Thanksgiving?”

“Urgh, fair enough but who the hell is going to do the turkey?”

“Clarice, what about you? Know how to cook a turkey?”

“Huh?” She jolted forward, not expecting her name to get thrown into the mix. She had been content simply sitting back and watching them go at each other as they usually did.

“Do you know how to cook a turkey?” repeated Jimmy.

“Not…really?”

“Well it can’t be as bad as either of us,” Jimmy said. “So we’ll mark you down for doing the turkey.”

Clarice blinked, not completely following until it hit her. They had just invited her over for Thanksgiving. She almost declined out of habit. Holidays just weren’t her thing. However, she managed to stop herself and smiled. “Just don’t expect anything brilliant.”

Both Jimmy and Brian grinned at her acceptance of the invitation.

“One more round to celebrate a possibly edible Thanksgiving dinner,” Brian said, downing the rest of his beer in one go.

“Sounds good to me,” Clarice said, raising her hand once more and gesturing the barman over.

They took their time finishing the last round as the clock got closer and closer to three. They talked a bit more about Thanksgiving, went into some office gossip, and then theorized a bit more on the best way to kill Krendler seeing as Clarice’s tongue got a bit looser than she anticipated.

After that, they headed out and down the street towards Jimmy and Brian’s apartment, another tradition they had fallen into whenever they went to the little bar. Seeing as they always tipped heavily and never caused a fuss, the owner never minded them leaving any cars over night.

By the time they made it in and had kicked off their shoes, it was a little past three and Brian had already made a beeline to the bedroom. Through the open door, Clarice watched as Brian walked straight into the bed frame and fell flat on his face. She couldn’t help but laugh good and hard as Jimmy said, “Stop being so dramatic.”

He then turned to the couch in the living room but nothing needed to be done. As always, he had made up the space for her beforehand.

“Need anything?” Jimmy double checked.

“I’m good Jimmy. I’ll see you in the morning,” Clarice said.

“Alright. Night.”

Clarice threw her coat over the back of the couch and pulled the blanket back. Pulling it over her and curling up, Clarice thought about how she had never believed she would get there. Not Jimmy and Brian’s couch _specifically_ but simply in such a place of complacency.

Her early life had all been geared towards getting into the FBI and she hadn’t even considered what the rest of her life would be like. She had always assumed that everything would point back to the FBI, every action, every thought.

She honestly had never contemplated a life outside it and sure, some might have argued she still didn’t considering where her friends worked too, even more so if they knew about the occasional appearance of a known serial killer in her head. But spending the night on Brian and Jimmy’s couch night after night, talking to them in her free time, going for dinner and drinks, they were friends that Clarice hadn’t expected. Same could be said for Ardelia and when Clarice was assigned a room with her. She had never considered how important Ardelia would become when they were forced to share that dorm.

And even more so, Clarice was happy, a thought that had never figured into her plans. Getting into the FBI had meant connecting to her father, a way to help others, to stop the lambs from screaming, but never really about happiness. Yet here she was, connecting and opening up to real people, not corpses and crime scene photographs.

It was a realization that had her relaxing even further as she fell into a now familiar dream, Will’s face greeting her in sleep.


End file.
